


Sleight of Hand

by TheVineSpeaketh



Series: Ain't No Rest for the Short-Change Hero [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Borderlands, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Assassin!Grantaire, Backstory, Eponine is a BAMF, Gen, Grantaire & Éponine Thénardier Friendship, Minor Character Death, Siren!Eponine, Skags are Cute, Valjean is a BAMF, everyone is a BAMF, grantaire is a bamf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:34:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVineSpeaketh/pseuds/TheVineSpeaketh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t suppose you’d be friendly, would you?”</p><p>Eponine looked up, looking over at R and grinning. “I don’t know,” she replied. “R, are we friendly?”</p><p>“I am friendly to anybody who hates Javert.”</p><p>The voice seemed almost excited to hear that. “Then you share my sentiments,” he replied. “On a scale of one to ten, how inclined are you to getting into Sanctuary, and from there, taking down Javert?”</p><p>Eponine and R shared another look before she looked back toward the town of Liar’s Berg. “Forty-two,” she replied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleight of Hand

**Author's Note:**

> God I just want to go to bed. All typos can be blamed on the late hour, and I will come back to check this thing over for any.
> 
> Have this as a bedtime story, kiddos.
> 
> Edit: So it was so late and I was so tired that I kind of forgot Sanctuary is surrounded in snow. I changed some language, though, so hopefully it works. XD

R hadn’t known Eponine before he had arrived on Pandora. R had only met her on the railway heading toward where Honorable Javert—and what kind of name was that for a guy, huh? Narcissistic much?—wanted them to start. It had been him, Eponine (who he did not know as Eponine at the time, but rather, the dark-haired girl who had a fascination with her hands), a relatively short man who continuously shined his SMGs and chuckled at the other man’s jokes, and the other man, a tall brunet with a crew cut and camouflage. The brunet had sat right next to SMG Guy, as he’d taken to calling him, as if he’d known him, and now that R thought back to it, maybe they did know each other. Either way, he’d started talking, and they’d struck up some great conversation and laughed their way through most of the ride.

“Oi, merc,” the brunet had said, and R had looked up from where he’d been admiring his sabre. The man’s gaze leveled with is easily before he nodded down at the weapon in his hands. “Is that all you’ve got?”

To any outsider, R was impassive, as his face was blocked by a one-way visor that was black on the outside but transparent on the inside. R looked at him a moment before smirking, leaning down and once again passing the blade through his hands, making sure it was as pristine and ready for flesh as it was before. “This is all I need.”

The rest of the ride had passed relatively as it did before, with the two men across from him joking quietly between themselves, clearly caught up in their conversation and enjoying one another’s presence. R remembered wondering if they would spend the rest of their time on Pandora together, perhaps searching out the second Vault together and claiming the glory together. R smirked again, looking down at his sabre once more. He was confident that out of the four people on the train, he would be the first to reach the Vault.

“The train will be arriving at its destination soon,” a pleasant voice echoed from the train’s communication system, and R stood, sheathing his sabre. As the others gathered themselves and readied to stand, R took a look out the window, attempting to gauge where they were. His brows furrowed as all he registered was snow, far and wide. Wasn’t Pandora supposed to be sweltering heat and barren landscapes? This was barren, alright, but not the kind of barren he was expecting.

“Is anyone concerned in regards to where we are?” R asked, leaning closer to the glass. “It doesn’t seem like there’ll be a vault out here.”

“You never know,” the brunet replied, standing up and cracking his knuckles and neck before sighing with relief. “The last vault was encased in snow.”

“Apparently,” said the SMG Guy, and R could tell that his native tongue was not English. It almost seemed as if he spoke Spanish, an old language R was familiar with. “It’s rumored that one of the old Vault Hunters is actually still on Pandora.”

The brunet turned to him, looking down at him with shock written plain on his features. “No shit, really?” he asked, sounding excited. “Which one?”

“The Soldier, they called him,” SMG Guy replied, inspecting the scope of one of his guns. “But apparently he resents that.”

“Wow,” the brunet said, not really responding to the last bit. “I’d love to find him. I really want to talk to him about his turret. I heard he had a Scorpio, like the guys who used to be in the Crimson Lance. Those things do bugger-all alone, but with upgrades, they’re veritable powerhouses.” He paused for a moment, clearly thinking about a Scorpio turret, before snapping out of it and turning to SMG Guy. “What about the other Vault Hunters?”

“Apparently they died.” R didn’t fail to notice the brunette flinching where she stood, her hands stopping in the middle of her adjusting her gloves. “I heard it was gruesome. The Assassin died first, I think, and then the Berserker. Apparently the place was crawling with Lance, and aliens and shit, and they just couldn’t take it. The Soldier was the only one who made it out of the Vault alive, but I’m not sure if the others ever made it in in the first place.”

“And the Siren? Everybody knows about the Siren on their team.”

“The Siren just fucking disappeared. The Siren wasn’t even part of the story. She made it up to the Vault and just… vanished. If she’s still alive, she ain’t showing herself. I’m assuming it’s because Honorable Javert takes an interest in Sirens. Or maybe she’s dead.”

The brunet shivered, checking his belt, presumably to see if everything is where it should be. “He gives me the creeps. He’s a really strange dude.”

“I know,” SMG Guy replied. “I definitely wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t paying us for this shit.”

A loud bang sounded, and there was a soft tap on the floor, like cardboard hitting the floor. Everyone looked up, surprised to see there was actually a rectangle of cardboard on the floor where there wasn’t before. R looked up, looking at the sign hanging in the middle of the car, which once read “Welcome, Vault Hunters.” It now said “TO YOUR DOOM.”

“Fuck that noise,” SMG Guy said, just as another metal bang sounded behind them. R turned, instantly seeing two Hyperion robots assembling themselves at the end of the hall, clearly ready for a fight. R instantly leaped, grasping onto two metal pipes running along the top of the train and swinging up through a hatch in the ceiling, disappearing to the top of the train.

The chilled air was a shock, but R was faster than his jolt of surprise. R threw out an illusion behind him as he raced in the opposite direction, ducking down between two of the train cars, gripping onto the side and remaining there. He could hear gunshots from within, the steady noise of metal being pierced by ammunition permeating the air, mechanical whirring noises as the robots attempted to move just barely humming underneath the noise. R leaned over and looked at the train car, unsurprised to see SMG Guy hanging out of a gaping hole in the side of the train car, looking for all the world like this was a normal day. Hell, maybe it **was** a normal day for the dude. R didn’t know him. He didn’t know his life.

A bright flash of light reflected off of SMG Guy’s face, and he looked inside, narrowing his eyes at something before hopping in. Then, all R could hear was gunshots and laughter.

He was distracted, however, by the hatch door he’d climbed through opening, and two Hyperion soldiers armored with mech technology hopped onto the roof. They slowly approached R’s illusion, which stood with its back to them. As they moved slowly toward him, he leapt up onto the top of the train, slowly crawling toward them on all fours. He waited, crouching into a position that he could easily spring from, his sabre brandished in his hand. The first Hyperion soldier reached out, grabbing for him. The illusion fizzled out.

R used their momentary confusion to his advantage. He lunged forward, running his sabre through the first man. Blood shot forward onto the other soldier’s back, and he turned, attempting to look back at his fellow soldier. R jumped, turning in the air kicking the other soldier onto his sabre. The two men, stuck together, cried out and stumbled, falling backward onto the train and rolling off to one side. R grabbed his sabre and kicked them off the edge, turning his attention to the hole and jumping back down inside.

He landed to find the others gathered together near the front of the train, with the brunet calling his turret back. The brunette was adjusting her gloves again, and there was the distinct smell of ozone in the car near where she was standing. The SMG Guy was holding his SMGs, loading each of them with deliberation and staring down the door like it had done him personal harm. The Soldier looked back at them, holding his finger to his lips, and turned to the door, rearing back and giving it a solid kick.

The door easily caved in, revealing a single chair in which someone sat. The Soldier walked in, his gun raised, his weight pressed to the balls of his feet, clearly on high alert. He approached the chair, the others following shortly behind him, with R heading up the rear, keeping an eye on the corners of the room and the door behind them, just in case.

The Soldier reached the chair, holding a hand out and spinning it around, instantly aiming his gun at the face sitting there. It was a dummy. Honorable Javert’s face was painted on a wooden mannequin which sat in a mocking pseudo-pose that could only be mistaken for human from the back.

“While it pleases me that you are willing to heed the call,” a voice said over the intercom, and R felt his stomach plummet, because that was **him** , that was Javert’s voice, and that fucker had them screwed. That, and he also realized that there was dynamite in the rafters, little red sticks set to timers that he hadn’t seen until just now.

“I am afraid you are unable to answer it,” Javert finished. “I shall see you in another life, perchance.”

Then, the dynamite detonated.

* * *

R couldn’t remember much else, to be honest, because blunt force trauma tends to do that shortly after an explosion, and it wasn’t necessarily a thing you could just get over. Nevertheless, he remembered waking up in the snow, freezing nearly to his bones and feeling worse for wear, but definitely alive. There were bodies strewn about him, he remembered, none of them he recognized and most of them blue or covered in snow, missing limbs or bloodied in some way. He looked around for a moment, trying to somehow recalibrate his ability to move (because he seemed to be frozen quite literally). Surveying the area around him and sensing no immediate danger, he decided not to pull out his sabre.

He laid there for a few more moments before he noticed something glowing on one of the bodies, a pure white surging from its center. He struggled to pull himself to his feet, trying to get to it, and ended up having to limp his way over to it. He picked it up, recognizing it as an Interface. He slotted it into his armor, feeling it powering up, and examined his health through the screen. “Fuck,” he spat upon seeing his left leg was slightly crippled, though he was sure that with a shot or two it would be fine, though he didn’t know where he could find any vials out there.

He looked up again, once again surveying the area, but all he could see for miles was snow and blizzard, and it didn’t look like he’d be able to find anything in this graveyard of bodies. He didn’t even know if there was anywhere to go out here, as deserted as it was.

His thoughts were interrupted by a low groan that carried even over the wind, and then something bright blue was glowing before it dimmed. He didn’t hesitate for a second, limping over to where the glowing light had been. Laying half-buried in snow was the brunette from before, bleeding from a cut on her head and slightly burned on her only visible shoulder, but nevertheless alive.

He knelt, ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg and attempting to dig her out with his bare hands. She snarled, looking up at him, but whatever she saw must have stopped her from doing anything more in terms of aggression, because she looked back down at the ground and attempted once more to pull herself from the snow.

“I have you,” R said, grasping around her waist and tugging her free of the rest of the snow, trying not to jostle her too much in case she was injured. She didn’t look it, though.

“I would say thank you,” she said, her skin sparking for a moment, and the snow that perched on her melted instantly, “but I am currently too pissed to be friendly.”

“Understood,” R replied, rising to a stand to the best of his abilities. “Honorable Javert is not so honorable, it seems.”

“It appears not, no,” she replied, coming to a stand and brushing her arms off, instantly walking over toward one of the bodies and rummaging through the clothes on it. “But I’m not going to stay stuck here.”

R did not follow her, but he did continue to speak with her. “You have a plan.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t meant to be interpreted as one.

She continued going through the clothes until she found something that he also recognized as another Interface, and she clicked it into her belt, also giving out a slight curse. She turned back to him after a moment, her hand on her hip, her eyes absolutely murderous. “I do.”

“Care to share?”

She laughed, and it was bitter and hard, and absolutely bloodthirsty. “I’m going to burn him,” she said, her voice low and harsh. “I am going to burn him so badly the scars will never heal. I will make him wish for death.”

R nodded, looking at her determined expression, her burned shoulder, her hands, which flickered with some kind of light that R was not going to ask about—yet. He looked at her face, the crook of her lip, the turn of her nose, the dark look in her eyes, the burnt strands of her hair behind her. R looked at her and saw a murderer-to-be. R could get behind that.

“I want in,” he said, pulling out his sabre and flicking it back and forth between his hands nimbly. “I am itching to draw blood.”

She looked at him, her eyes flicking to different parts of his body, as if sizing him up. Her gaze lingered on his hands, which had stilled, before she looked back up at his face. Then, her quirked lip turned into a full-out smirk. “There is **always** room for one more.”

From there, the pair had only become comrades. Limping through the snow, they had managed to find a light shining out in the darkness, and managed to get inside a hub of a place. They looted it thoroughly and found many vials in the containers in the place, as well as a pair of old pistols that they instantly grabbed. After checking the pistols to make sure they worked, they took turns shooting one another up, with R asking her to focus on his leg. It wasn’t pleasant, but the recovery was much better than simply letting his leg stay crippled.

“I’m Eponine, by the way,” she said as she delivered yet another stinging shot to the sensitive area behind his knee. He grimaced.

“I am R,” he replied, and she looked up, giving him an incredulous look.

“R?” she asked, and he looked up at her, his brows pinched.

“Yes.” His tone was very serious.

She raised her hands placatingly, handing him a vial and showing her burnt shoulder to him. “Just asking,” she replied. “R isn’t exactly a common name, is all.”

“I am not common,” was his reply, and he gave her a shot.

* * *

As soon as the pair was patched up, they decided to get moving. Together, they barreled their way through the Windshear Waste, fending off Bullymongs and Bandits until they were finally able to make their way to Liar’s Berg. It was there that they met Captain Flynt’s goons, and, after dispatching them easily between the two of them, a wandering huntsman by the name of Valjean.

R had just sent the last man to the ground with a sneak attack that had ended with a slit throat, and Eponine was standing in front of a collapsed Bullymong, examining its mouth (presumably to see if any parts had gotten stuck in its teeth) when they heard a voice coming in through their interfaces.

“I don’t suppose you’d be friendly, would you?”

Eponine looked up, looking over at R and grinning. “I don’t know,” she replied. “R, are we friendly?”

“I am friendly to anybody who hates Javert.”

The voice seemed almost excited to hear that. “Then you share my sentiments,” he replied. “On a scale of one to ten, how inclined are you to getting into Sanctuary, and from there, taking down Javert?”

Eponine and R shared another look before she looked back toward the town of Liar’s Berg. “Forty-two,” she replied.

“Then there are a few things we need to get done first,” he replied. “I’m Jean Valjean, but call me whatever works best for you. I have a few things I’d like done, if you wouldn’t mind. There’s money in it for you.”

That was how they ended up going through the Southern Shelf killing bandits and looking for midgets riding Bullymongs (and what an interesting conversation they had about **that** afterwards), and all the while, they got to know one another. Eponine told R about her little brother that she left behind to go hunting for the vault. She told R about her craptastic parents, her life spent almost entirely in poverty, her father’s attempts to milk money out of her gifts. She told him late one night over a fire and a batch of Bullymong Soup that she had whipped up that she was a Siren, and that she had mostly come to Pandora looking for the other one.

“And what about you?” she asked, sipping on broth and stopping for a moment to pick Bullymong fur out of her teeth. “You got any history?”

R shook his head. He hadn’t touched his soup. He didn’t eat. He never ate, and she never mentioned it. “No history behind me. Just a name.”

“Just R,” she said, his name sounding final from her lips. She grinned at him, leaning forward and setting her bowl down. Her eyes sparkled in the firelight. “You aren’t all that bad, R. I think we could be friends.”

R laughed. “I’ve never had friends,” he admitted, honest for once and feeling naked for it, even though there was a mask between them.

Her grin just grew into a smile. “Well you’re about to get one, you sonovabitch.”

* * *

The next day, they returned to Valjean, only to discover that they had done everything that needed doing in the Wastes. “Now it’s time to destroy Captain Flynt and commandeer his ship,” he said, rolling up his map and pulling out a pistol from his pocket, an old revolver that looked like it had seen battle and had protected its owner many a time. “We can sail it to Sanctuary.”

“And then we can find a way to Javert?” Eponine asked, clearly antsy about Valjean keeping up his end of the bargain.

He just smiled at her, his wrinkled face fatherly in its ease of expression, and maybe somebody who looked him over could be convinced just with a glance that that was all he was. But R was not fooled; in his eyes lurked a certain sort of danger, an ability to become unhinged and a willingness to do all that needed to be done at the time. R could tell he would make a formidable opponent, if he ever had to fight him.

The three of them had easily made their way from Liar’s Berg all the way to Captain Flynt, Valjean easily overcoming any obstacle set in his way, and all of R’s suspicions were confirmed. He terrified many of the bandits, at least the ones who had heard of his name, and they called him the Huntsman, but only in screams as they either dropped their weapons or geared themselves for a fight. None of them lived.

In the end, it was merely Flynt who stood in their way, and with R, Eponine, and Valjean already soaked in blood from the battlefield and thirsting for more, the battle did not last terribly long. In the end, they were able to commandeer the ship and set sail for Sanctuary.

* * *

On the boat, Eponine was able to eat, and once she finished she breathed a heavy sigh of frustration and dragged a barrel in front of where R was leaning against the deck, examining his sabre again. He looked down at her, quirking a brow as she sat on the barrel in front of him, her back to him.

“My burnt hair is a nuisance,” she said plainly.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You have a knife.”

“It is a sabre.”

“Still a blade, nerd,” she replied, turning to look at him and giving him a big grin. “I want to cut all of it off.”

His eyebrow rose again, not that she could see it. “All of it?”

“All of it,” she replied. “It’s burnt at the tips and it’s uneven, and it won’t grow this way.” She turned her back to him again, her hair falling down her back, and he could see the blackened tips clearly now, and how it really was uneven. “I know you’re talented with that blade. I’ve seen you use it. I have no doubt that you could use it for things outside its intended purpose. Cut it.”

R said little else, seeing as he didn’t see a reason to argue, and instead set to work on her hair.

Valjean rose from beneath the deck a few moments later to find him drawing the blade through some hair he had pulled taut, and the man’s face broke into one of his usual happy grins, which was becoming less rare of him now that they were sailing into warmer climates. He moved toward them, pulling forth a barrel of his own and sitting on it, watching R work on her hair.

“Are you Vault Hunters, then?” he asked, and Eponine’s head twitched as if she wanted to shift, but she restrained herself.

“Yes,” she answered instead, her tone polite. “And I take it you’re not?”

Valjean laughed. “No, no,” he said kindly. “I am built for much wilder pursuits, if you pardon my use of language. I was out on the glacier looking for Bullymong clans when I was trapped by Flynt’s bandits. I’m glad you decided to become Vault Hunters, or I may have been stuck out there for another half a year.” He looked down at his hands, twisting his fingers nervously. “I have a daughter I’d like to get back to.”

“What’s her name?” Eponine asked, her voice going soft, usually the way it sounded when she was talking about Gavroche.

“Cosette,” he replied, smiling slightly to himself. “She’s in Sanctuary. She’s lovely. She’s all I live for, now. The thrill of the hunt is exciting, but in the end, it’s all for Cosette.”

“I know the feeling,” she replied softly, looking down at her hands, and R ran the blade through the last bit of hair, stepping back from her and examining his handiwork.

“Done,” he said, and her hands rose up to her hair, feeling it and parsing how it looked just from its feel. She rolled her head a bit, getting used to the lack of weight on her neck. After a moment, she turned to him and gave him another smile.

“It’s great,” she said. “Thank you, R.”

He nodded, and she came to a stand, moving away from them without looking back and heading to the stairs that led underneath the deck. Valjean watched her go, and then watched as R lowered himself onto the barrel she had just vacated.

“Eponine is a great woman,” Valjean said, smiling at R.

“I have known many women to be great,” R answered honestly, “but none so great as Eponine. I believe there is much we could accomplish together.”

Valjean nodded, looking out over the sea. He seemed to be contemplating something. “You seem terribly close,” he ended up saying, looking back at R with a sheepish look on his face. “If it’s not too personal to ask—”

“I am not somebody capable of loving in that way, I don’t think,” R responded, his voice still stoic. “But Eponine is mine, and I am hers, in a way. I will not part from her willingly.”

Valjean nodded, a look of solemn understanding crossing his features. “Good,” he replied. “I’m not saying she’s incapable of fending for herself—we both know that isn’t true—but if she is ever in need, I’m glad to know you will be there for her.” His eyes were clouded over and his expression was solemn. “I have seen many a person abandon those who were unable to help themselves, and needless to say I’ve grown quite tired of it.”

R did not say anything, instead deciding to simply sit there, though his silence seemed to speak to Valjean, because he nodded, clearing his throat and coming to a stand, walking away to presumably take up the helm again.

* * *

 They had arrived at their destination which was just a short ride away from Sanctuary, but of course, that was when they realized that the usual method of transportation—a Catch-A-Ride Station—was locked to keep bandits from poking around in it and calling up a Runner to ride in. Valjean was less than pleased, especially because some bandit asshole had detonated the bridge leading to Sanctuary not two minutes ago, and had spent a good amount of time tinkering with it and attempting to unlock it for them.

“Do you need anything to help you out?” Eponine had finally asked after Valjean had sworn under his breath for the fiftieth time. He scrubbed his hand through his hair, displacing his hat before putting it back on and turning halfway to face her.

“If it’s not any trouble,” he replied, and Eponine nearly jumped to her feet in her excitement, clearly eager to do something. “That bandit camp over there might have a few parts I can use to bypass the system, if you’d be so obliged to raid them.”

She pulled out her SMG—a Maliwan with shock capabilities that she had instantly fallen in love with—and grinned a feral grin. “With pleasure,” she said, heading toward the camp at a run. “Come on, R!”

R had followed her into battle without hesitation. It wasn’t the first time they were grossly outnumbered, though this was the first time they had ever faced anything like the heavy-set nomads that were scraping their shields near to bursting. Eponine was hiding behind cover a few feet from him when her shield burst, falling away from her like peeling scales, and R had only doubled his efforts to decimate the enemy and get over to Eponine to help. He raised himself off of his seat behind cover to a crouch, looking down the sight of his rifle and shooting a bandit through the eye, watching as he grasped at his head blindly before collapsing onto the ground.

Eponine’s cry of pain was what called him out of his reverie, the one he always sunk into when a body turned into a corpse because of him, and he turned to see her kneeling, clearly in pain, crippled and still shooting with one hand, attempting to stifle blood dripping steadily from her side with her other hand. She was suffering so much knockback due to using just that one hand that she was hardly hitting the nomad in front of her, which was gaining on her.

R didn’t hesitate. He jumped away from his cover, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him, and flew behind the cover Eponine had, pressing his hands to her shoulders and holding her upright. All at once, it felt as though a current was running beneath their skin, swimming from R to Eponine. She gasped, then blinked, and suddenly she was on her feet again, taking proper aim and electrocuting a man with her rounds, switching instantly to the next target as the previous target convulsed on the ground, clearly dying.

Eponine was merciless. But so was R, really. Neither of them talked about why, though it hung thick in the air even after the screams died and the camp was empty save for their beating hearts.

And one lonely Alpha skag who was tied to a pole and snarling, walking itself in circles and clearly trying to reach Eponine, who was standing just out of reach. R wanted to put it down with a shot through its gaping maw. “Painless,” he said, but Eponine shook her head, looking at the beast with something close to reverence on her features.

“I think he’s adorable,” she said, and R couldn’t find himself agreeing. “He reminds me of Gav.” R didn’t know what to say to that (was it a good thing or a bad thing that a skag reminded her of her younger brother?), and so he looked around the camp, attempting to somehow spot the parts they were looking for from where he was standing, but to no avail. They weren’t out in the open, and they’d probably take a long time to find. Eponine was no good at looking for things; she grew too restless.

So he turned to Eponine. “If you can tame that skag before I find the parts,” he said, and she turned to look at him, “then you can keep him.”

It took her face roughly two seconds to morph into an expression of pure determination. “Okay,” she said, clearly taking it as the challenge it was meant to be.

Several hours later, R had all the parts. When he returned, Eponine was on the skag’s back, petting it right under one of its hard armor plates, the thing panting underneath her.

“Cut Gav’s rope, will you?” was all she said. R, a man of his word, obliged her.

When they returned to Valjean, he was thrilled. “I’ve never seen a tamed skag this large and old before,” he said, petting Gavroche’s mouth and receiving no damage for his trouble. “Unless they grew up in captivity, of course. This is amazing.”

Eponine beamed like she was just given the world, and R couldn’t help but give Gav a pet too, slightly surprised when the beast licked his hand with a long, ropey tongue.

Valjean got the Catch-A-Ride running, but R and Eponine decided to head off on their own, since Gavroche wouldn’t fit into the Runner. Valjean seemed hesitant to leave them on their own, but eventually conceded. “You are clearly beyond any expectation anyone will ever have of you,” he told them kindly as he hopped in his machine, testing the turret on a patch of dirt before them. “Be safe, and stick together.”

“We will,” Eponine replied, and then Valjean left them to it.

* * *

Ever since, they wandered the wintry desert, keeping Gavroche happy hunting Bullymongs and bandits and God knows what else, camping out underneath the stars and occasionally wrestling with Gav when the day was long but he was still kind of playful. Every night they ate some Bullymong that they’d gotten earlier in the day, just enjoying the deserted places that reminded them of the wastes (not that they missed it, though they did miss being alone together), until eventually, Eponine decided that they should head to Sanctuary.

“We’ve dallied enough,” she said, coming to a stand one morning. “We should get to Sanctuary and find Valjean again.”

She had said it with such a sense of finality, as if this is what they **had** to do, that R had simply nodded in response and gotten ready for the day.

They were at Sanctuary around noon. The sun was high in the sky, the Bullymongs that had lingered near the gate dead at their feet. R was fiddling with the gate controls.

“I can’t believe they don’t just keep the gate open,” Eponine said, wiping her forehead and looking into the sky. Despite the snow being very near behind them, the sudden change in scenery was still proving to be dramatic. Where the snow was not, the heat was. “We ought to get Gav to some water soon. Poor thing might be parched.”

“Do not baby him, Ep,” he said, turning to look at the hulking beast, which panted and gave a little smile that looked so strange on a skag that R had to turn around again. “He is grinning like an idiot. He is fine.”

“What’s with the security of Sanctuary being tighter than a virgin asshole, anyway?”

R laughed a little at the analogy. “I think it might be the reason Sanctuary is a sanctuary, Eponine. They keep all the bad people out with such tight security.”

“You’d think they’d be expecting Vault Hunters,” she said, and then she laughed, as if suddenly getting a joke. “Well, maybe not, considering Javert is murdering everyone left and right.”

R thought about SMG Guy and the Soldier for a moment before he cleared his mind of them again. Best not to dwell on what could have been. The keypad underneath his hands began glowing blue. It was open.

As the gate began sliding open, R turned to Eponine and said, grinning under his mask, “even if they **were** expecting Vault Hunters, I do not think in any life they could be ready for **us**.”

Eponine laughed and pet Gavroche on his bulky shoulder, and he shook his head happily in response. Then, the trio took their first steps into Sanctuary as they did nearly everything else; loudly, and without fear.

**Author's Note:**

> God, this is long. I just wanted to establish a bit more backstory for these two before I continued their chronicles. I’ll do something similar to this for everyone else to spice it up, but they’ll be interspersed randomly, so don’t expect a pattern of progression/backstory/progression/backstory over and over again.
> 
> I originally wrote Grantaire’s first few lines as haikus, similar to Zer0’s speaking style in Borderlands 2: 
> 
> “Why use a sabre? Nobody can match my skill. This is all I need.”
> 
> “Does anyone think / that this train is kind of odd / stopping in the snow?”
> 
> “Next time you need me / to use my blade for your sake / you should just say so.” 
> 
> Come visit me on [tumblr!](http://exacteyewriting.tumblr.com)


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